FAILED
FISCAL SYSTEM AND POLITICAL BEGGARY
By Kay Aderibigbe
The
nexus between state and economy in Nigeria is such an inertial type which is
why both institutions are antithetical. This is because there is rarely a
meeting point between government prioritized endeavours and the needs of our
people. Over the years, Nigeria has solely depended on fossil fuel and eschewed
all other meaningful commercial alternative avenues that could provide as much
as we earn from oil today. The resultant effect being that all the 36 states of
the federation draw their yearly budgets based on the allocations from
Federation Account. Ancillary palliative measures
to budgetary provisions like internal/external loans, bi-lateral grants from
abroad and 'federal bailout' e.g. the recent intervention fund approved by
president Buhari are "occasional Jesus Christ that may or may not attend
the wedding ceremony of our poor states and turn their water to wine".
A
flashback into the era of regionalism will show how unashamed,
unscrupulous and unintelligent political
administrators in this country are. Before the proliferation of states, regions
are specialists in various agricultural products which served as veritable
sources of income. Regional governments are the Landlords that contributed
taxes/quotas to the federation which actually weakened central monopoly of
power, encouraged competitive developments and enhanced our terms/balance of
trade and payment in favour of Naira as a currency.
Fiscal system during
the period of regionalism does not allow uncountable retinue of aides for state
governors and parliamentarians alike. There were lesser unnecessary and
non-performing ministries. Agriculture made government the largest employer of
labour not fraudulent and opaque NNPC. Civils service contained ingenuous and industrious
individuals with job roles not ghost workers that do nothing and earn tax
payers' money.
Initially,
multiplication of states was borne out of the calculations of military government
[Gowon/Murtala] to reduce the negative effects of tribalism and ethnic
chauvinism; while Babangida and Abacha created
seventeen more states as political rewards, ' economic pots of soup' for their
godfather loyalists. In all, state creation since 1967 does not afford vestigial
states the kind of regional economic platform that could enable them exist in
commensalism with federal government. More so, many state governors are
thieves, foolish and too greedy that they loot through any imaginary means they
could fathom. Since most of these state governors lacked creative mentalities
that could serve as alternative to oil revenue, they must look up to federal
government for survival and retain their second class statuses.
As undismayed with decadence in state management as state
governors remain, they still take after federal method of politicking such as
creating avalanche of ministries with uncountable political appointments that
are surplus to requirement. Collapse in oil price mete out an attendant
effect on Nigeria and states have fallen
into financial crisis. federal government and states are all indebted. Almost
24 states are owing their workers between 5 and 16 months.
The wage
bill of these states is almost 75% of their monthly allocations; little wonder
they couldn't embark on any meaningful developmental projects, but borrow from
anywhere possible even, to pay salaries. This national embarrassment prompted
Buhari to approve a sum of #713.7 billion bailout for the federal and states governments
to offset workers' salaries. Out of which #413 is an intervention fund while
#300 is a soft loan from CBN.
The important questions are the following [i]
for how long will this ‘political babihanla’ continue
on the part of the states? [ii] when will state governments in Nigeria develop
their internal capacities to generating wealth? [iii] for how long would oil
crisis degenerate into financial crises for Nigeria? [iv] what is the
plan of the current federal government on economic diversification? [v] must
state governments employ/appoint so many people that contribute nothing to the
economic development of the state but receive salaries in the name of carrying
files? [vi] what happens to these backward-thinking states after bailout? [vii]
since the dwindling oil price is still nose-diving would Buhari continue to
source from the proceeds of NLNG to fund states with dysfunctional economies?
My submission is that fiscal federalism would go a long way to
put to rest the case of dearth/shortage of finance and financial impropriety;
economic imbalance; weeding out of non-performing sections of the civil
service; promote internal competition among states; create job opportunities;
enhance mass market; diversify the economy; silence or reduce the ubiquity of
federal character principle and also promote state-centred against
nation-centred federalism.
In a simple
language, different states have mineral resources; they should be
constitutionally empowered to put those into industrialization, and remit taxes
to federal government. States with little or no resource(s) can
resort to pure agriculture or energy-based production. Against this backdrop,
federal politics will be less chaotic; since there is no much goodies to suck, as
a result, the centre will be administrative-driven, purposeful and
rule-oriented. The reliance on oil revenue will reduce drastically. Moreover, financial
problem will not warrant ‘political babihanla’ that
will continue to encourage ineptitudeness, dormancy, over-reliant on federal
government and external loan which will only add to the backward movement of
the Nigerian economy.
Without this, failure of public policies
will not be seen as a setback but rather, as a propellant for government functionaries
to arise and stereotyped Nigerians as refugees in their own country despite the
volume of illegitimate largesse enjoyed by political office holders in the
midst of fiscal imbalance that pervaded the country.
